ScienceDirect - Biosystems Engineering : A Quick and Accurate Estimation of Heat Losses from a Cow

ScienceDirect - Biosystems Engineering : A Quick and Accurate Estimation of Heat Losses from a Cow

Authors from:
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, India
School of Mechanical Engineering, University Sains Malaysia, 14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia
Department of Mechanical Engineering, AFSET, Dhauj, Faridabad, Haryana, India
MS Ramaiah School of Advanced Studies, Gnanagangothri Campus, New BEL Road, Bangalore 560 054, India

Brought to our attention by Improbable Research.

Interestingly enough, the authors are not the pioneers of the field. Said pioneers are "Kifle G Gebremedhin of Cornell University in the US and Binxin Wu of Tongi University in China."

I quote (from the Guardian's Improbable Research Column):

"The Gebremedhin-Wu method certainly is slow. Despite making a simple assumption - that a cow is a cylinder - it requires you to do some tedious calculating. Khan, Badruddin, Quadir and Seetharamu, in introducing their own method, pooh-pooh the Gebremedhin-Wu way. They say it involves complex computer programming and, moreover, is useless to people "who do not possess adequate background of heat and mass transfer, in addition to the computer programming skill"."

"And then - the great triumph of the method - you look up the answer in a table. Khan, Badruddin, Quadir and Seetharamu have removed most of the tedium by doing the calculations for you. That's why you don't have to do the calculations yourself."

"This triumph of simplification is reminiscent of another study, also describing a new method to replace a tedious old one, and also performed in India. In 1990, KP Sreekumar and G Nirmalan of Kerala Agricultural University published a report called Estimation of the Total Surface Area in Indian Elephants. They reaped unexpected dividends 12 years later, when they received an Ig Nobel prize in the field of mathematics."